


Daughter

by angelkat



Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [10]
Category: The Adventures of Puss in Boots (Cartoon)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Family Feels, Sweet Ginger, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21971605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelkat/pseuds/angelkat
Summary: In which Puss and Dulcinea have their first daughter.
Relationships: Puss in Boots/Dulcinea
Series: The Wee Compendium of Sweet Ginger [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571299
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon who requested this on my deleted Tumblr @rival-argentica. No, I haven't forgotten. :) I only hope this reaches you, even if I'm posting it months after the fact...I'm a terrible person. 
> 
> Happy Holidays, people!
> 
> Context: While writing this, I imagined that Puss' personality does not trigger the end of the world, that Sino fixed everything with the earthquakes and the portal, and that all is finally well in San Lorenzo. I also imagined that Puss and Dulcinea married each other before leaving San Lorenzo to do some adventuring together, after which they planned to finally settle in their hometown once they think they've seen the world.

Waves crashed mightily against the shore. The sunset sun’s golden glow gilded the soft swells of the vast, heaving ocean. That same orange brilliance struck the pieces of metal armour on the soft white sand, beside which lay a dusty leather hat, its yellow plume swaying in the gale force of the wind.

A riderless female horse frolicked over the sands of the nameless beach that lined this edge of Spain. She was uneasy. She glanced behind her every other second in her anxiety for Puss to return, who had ridden away with Babieca two hours ago for a ‘short’ trip to the nearest town. She was Dulcinea’s mare, and instead of having gone with her mate, she had opted to stay with her rider, who was currently sparring with another younger cat. It seemed to the mare, that despite the worrying amount of time that has passed, the girls didn’t seem too worried.

The opposite, in fact.

The two of them were barefoot as they sparred, flesh hitting against flesh as they talked about what they ate for breakfast this morning or their thoughts on the newly released sequel to the Wee Compendium of Factes and Funne. The howling sea wind muted the sound of their voices, carrying their occasional bursts of laughter over the ocean and far away. They talked about the little things, the thin threads of fibre that strengthened the bond of relationships, and time didn’t seem to matter as long as they were together. Dulcinea was simply garbed in the leather vest that came with the deluxe Tulpa armour that Sino had given her, back when she still had a permanent residence in San Lorenzo. Her much younger companion remained comfortable in her own white fur, garbed with nothing but her trusty pair of leather gloves.

“Good form, Angela!” Dulcinea grinned at the tiny gloved fist she has enclosed in her paw. Angela, her deep blue eyes bright with pride, grinned right back—a natural phenomenon supposedly as rare as the auroras of the North shining on the skies of Spain. Angela was a fickle kitten to whom childhood had never been kind. But then, quick as fox, the elder woman used her hold on the child’s fist to twirl her over the air so that she landed on her back on the sand. Angela stared at the sunset sky in her shock, but she was immediately snapped out of it when Dulcinea gigglingly plopped right beside her on the sand.

“Phew! That was _fun_.” Dulcinea turned her head, and Angela felt compelled to turn her head as well. “Don’t you think so?”

The smile on Angela’s face faded. “Of course I do,” she said. Then she looked back at the darkening sunset sky. “I just wish we could be together a little while longer.”

Dulcinea sobered at that. It was a sentiment they often shared at the end of the rare days when they saw each other. She reached for kitten’s gloved paw, squeezed it, and stared at the shapeless wisps of pink-purple clouds up at the dim sky. Stars had started blinking into existence to replace the sun’s reign over the skies.

“Yeah,” she replied, in the respectful silence that followed the regal sun as it dipped into the horizons. “I… wish we could be together a little longer, too.”

Angela hesitated.

“But why not?” she eventually blurted out. “We _could_ be together. Why settle for ‘just a little longer’ when it could be _‘forever’?_ ”

“Angela…” From the resignation in Dulcinea’s sigh, it was apparent that this was a conversation they had had for many times. “You _know_ how Puss feels about that.”

“But I _can_ take care of myself. You’re teaching me how to fight.”

“Only to defend yourself from your bullies,” Dulcinea gently reminded her. “It’s not enough to defend yourself from the danger of our adventures.”

“But you _can_ take me to your adventures!” The younger apparently had not been listening. “I don’t want to spend another boring day in Santa Ana. I just can’t. I just…don’t belong there.”

“Don’t think that,” Dulcinea said. She reached to trace her paw over the child’s face and finally rested her fingers upon her chin. “Puss and I love you. Really _very_ really.”

“Then why don’t you adopt me?”

The question came out as a hushed whisper, more a child’s prayer than a sulking demand, and it hurt Dulcinea’s heart to see a mere child hold such pain.

Why not, indeed. But it was a topic she and Puss had already long agreed upon: they weren’t ready to become parents. At least, Puss wasn’t, and Dulcinea wholly respected his desire to just run free across the deserts in the first years of his married life, with nothing but adventure ahead of their path. After they took their wedding vows in San Lorenzo and raced to the sunset on horseback, that had always been the plan.

Until Angela came along.

She was a little kitten when Dulcinea and Puss met her a year ago when they passed by the quaint little town of Santa Ana. Her fur glistened white from the tips of her ears to the point of her tail, save for the kiss of ginger on her forehead that spread around her eyes to form a mask that brought out the blue glitter of her intelligent gaze. She was quiet, curious, and had an obsessive fascination with the mechanics of things, though her silent interests had always isolated her from the rest of the kids in the town orphanage she lived in. And because the orphanage keeper never took her engineering endeavours seriously, the little kitten had felt compelled to resort to more…shady methods.

Angela had been in the market that day, doing well quietly snatching gears and trinkets from unsuspecting merchants and stuffing the precious items into her leather satchel. It would’ve gone perfectly for her if someone hadn’t suddenly screamed “THIEF!” and, Puss in Boots, ever the bearer of the world’s mightiest case of hero complex, had sprung into action to chase her. It was a noisy commotion they stirred in the market, with carts rolling and apples tumbling and women shaking their skirts, jumping in panic as the cats dashed from under their legs. Alas, Puss eventually caught up to her when he’d swung from a rope and cut off her path when he collided against her, and soon enough they’d been rolling over the dusty cobblestones where he ended up pinning her to the floor.

Dulcinea herself, mounted upon her horse, had soon appeared from the crowd, expressing her worry for her gallivanting husband by repeatedly saying, “You can’t just suddenly take off and _leave_ me like that, Puss!” or some other variant thereof.

That was how the newlyweds first met the kitten.

Judging from the female cat’s armour and the sword on the male cat’s belt, Angela had taken them to be ruthless enforcers of the law, and she’d braced herself for a beating. That was why it deeply baffled the kitten when, instead of surrendering her to the screaming crowd, Puss only gently reprimanded her for stealing, and afterwards even offered to pay the merchants she stole from for the items she stole. It soon became apparent to her that he had a soft side for rebellious orphaned children, because ever since then, Puss and Dulcinea had repeatedly revisited Santa Ana for the sole purpose of catching up with her, asking her how she’d been, were there any improvements on her retractable artificial claws, et cetera.

Angela just never understood why they never took her away from the orphanage that was had always been her prison since the first day of her life.

“Don’t think it’s your fault,” Dulcinea said, so lightly the words were almost carried too far away by the wind to be heard. “It’s…ours.” She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.

“You," she tried again, very empathically trying to make the kitten see that it _really isn't her fault,_ "are _the_ most precious treasure we’ve come across in all of our adventures, Angela. _Never_ doubt that. We just...think that…we’re not yet ready to have you.”

"Well... when will you be ready?"

"I don't...know." It was the most honest answer Dulcinea could give her. She hated that that was all she could do to comfort her.

Angela sighed. She inched closer to Dulcinea and closed her eyes to simply feel the warmth of the cuddle.

"Okay," the kitten grumbled, bravely restraining tears. "Whatever. But...you know that the most exciting days in my life are your visits, right? So...so just..." Her voice had become small. Vulnerable. "Just promise. _Promise_ you'll visit again next month."

"Cross my heart," vowed Dulcinea. "Have we ever failed you on that?"

"...well, there was that time you were one _entire_ week late—"

"We were trapped in a giant's floating castle!"

"—but you still came, no matter what." Angela purred as she rubbed her head under Dulcinea's. "That's what I love about you."

Dulcinea stared at the kitten curled up against her, and she blinked furiously to stop the tears leaking from her eyes. She had so long been ready to take Angela as her own, and she'd long told Puss that his verdict was the only thing the girls were waiting for, but...

She pushed those thoughts away. She moved to caress Angela's fur, stroking repeatedly until the two of them were lulled by the rhythm to sleep. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes were the stars that brightly constellated the sky.

It was deep into the night when she opened her eyes again to the sight of Puss drawing away from the kiss he had implanted on her forehead.

"Forgive me for taking so long, mi amor."

Dulcinea shifted and yawned, and in so doing, woke Angela as well. She gave Puss a soft smile of acknowledgement while on the other paw, Angela _glowed_ at the sight of him, with energy radiating out of her that was thousands of times brighter than the full moon.

"PUSS! You're back!" The kitten leapt from the sand and launched herself at Puss, hooking her arms around his neck as he twirled her over the sand while sharing the hug. Once parted, she needled him with a demand. "What _took_ you so long?"

Puss flinched at that, scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, eyes looking everywhere but hers... though the upward twitch at the tip of his mouth indicated that he was for from uncomfortable from Angela's prodding.

"Eh, well..." He shrugged playfully, as if it was not a big deal. "As you know, the town proper itself is a mile away from the beach."

"It's just half an hour ride on horseback!" Angela pointed out. "But you were gone for, what? _Five_ hours?"

"Yyyyy _yes_ , well." His grin held mischief behind it. "Because it does not exactly take five minutes to get someone bake you a birthday cake."

He gestured behind him, to Babieca and his mate who both stood guard over a small cake on a flat slab of rock, lit with a single candle. The yellow-orange flame glowed strongly despite the blow of the sea wind, protected as it was by the horses' bodies as per Puss' instructions.

Angela's eyes widened the size of saucers.

Dulcinea squealed, leaping from the sand herself to put her arms around the smaller kitten, her bubbling glee a stark contrast to Angela's silent shock.

"Oh, _Angela!"_ she said. "See? I _told_ you Puss went to do something important. Happy _happy_ birthday, my smart and sweet and beautiful—"

"D-Dul- _Dulcinea!_ " Angela said, finally feeling the blood return to her veins, only half embarrassed by Dulcinea's little praises because the other half of her tiny heart was too busy trying to process the fact that she had a real live actual _cake._

On her birthday.

"What?" Dulcinea laughed, and she bent her knees so she was eye-to-eye with the kitten and she could be properly booped on the nose. "You _are_ smart and sweet and beautiful, my little angel. Never let anyone tell you otherwise."

Puss had the sort of smile on his face that looked like he was trying to keep it from spreading too wide. "Run along then, mi angel." He grazed the back of his paw gently against the young one's cheek.

“Feliz cumpleaños."

Angela threw her arms around him yet again, an unexpected sob racking her body. Puss did not hesitate responding in kind, hugging her gently yet firmly without reservation nor inhibition—a little something he'd learned about relationships during the time he'd spent with Dulcinea.

(It was just one of the many reasons why she was good for him.)

Dulcinea watched, her own eyes glistening with joyful, unshed tears. Just when Puss was starting to think Angela wouldn't ever let him go, the girl broke apart the embrace, planted a kiss on his cheek, whispered "Thank you," and ran across the sands to her cake, the horses neighing their delight at her approach as if they themselves were telling her, "Surprise!"

Puss would have stayed on his knees and would have kept watching her fondly if Dulcinea hadn't interrupted his ruminations when she placed his hat on his head. He chuckled, righting it, and moved to stand beside her.

"I cannot believe you made me leave my hat," he said. "All the damsels I might have charmed with my dashing good looks back in the city..."

" _You_ , dashing mister, are _taken_ ," Dulcinea reminded him, poking him in the ribs as she did so, to which he could only laugh and raise his paws to the air in surrender. They laughed for a good few moments more before she sobered and shrugged nonchalantly with a glance back at Angela, who was still gushing over her cake with the horses who neighed enthusiastically back at her.

"She just...wants to make sure you'd come back. You know Angela's afraid you would've never returned. Again."

"Hey," he said, defensive. "That was a necessary measure. I did not wish the soldiers to see I was with her. Besides, _you_ were there with her. And I did not exactly break my oath—"

"You spent less than five minutes with her before you left and never returned."

"The oath was to spend time with her once every month! I do not see how that 'less than five minutes' argument of yours breaks my sworn oath."

Dulcinea paused. "Remember that time we were one week late—"

"Giant's castle," he groaned. "Can we please stop bringing unpleasant memories back to the surface?"

Before Dulcinea had the chance to parry, Angela yelled their names.

"Puss! _Dulcineaaa!_ Aren't you guys gonna join me here?!" She spread her arms, blew the flame off the candle, and screamed to the sky so mightily that it rivalled the gale forces of the howling winds.

"BEST! DAY! _EVEEER!_ "

Dulcinea gripped Puss' paw as they watched her dance over the sand, the horses happily frolicking around her.

"Isn't she the best thing ever?"

"Yes," he said without qualm. "Yes, she is."

Dulcinea titled her head at him. Call it the inner instinct of a wife, but she sensed his restrained in his words, like there was something he wasn't telling her. She was mystified to find a curiously wide grin on his face, but the moonlight proved elusive, and before she could examine him further, he'd already dashed towards their little angel from across the beach, calling out her name with a burst of laughter.

She shrugged it off and joined her husband to celebrate. They filled the night with songs, startled horses, icing sticking on fur, sands kicked into the air, and the merry splashing of cold seawater as the stars above moved quietly across the sky.

* * *

When Angela woke, it was to the clopping of Babieca's hooves against the cobblestones and the rhythm he made as he cantered through the slowly awakening town.

“Buenos dias, mi angel,” Puss greeted when she stirred away from him. She’d been leaning against him the entire ride, and when she glanced at the other rider, she saw Dulcinea smiling a pained smile back at her. They were nearing the goodbye part of their visits.

It was always the worst part of their visits.

Puss cleared his throat. “We have just arrived at Santa Ana.”

Obviously. And Angela knew what that meant. It meant another month of waiting till the day they visit again. Another month of distracting herself with her trinkets, another month of being forced to wake for a long series of days she didn’t care for, another month of tolerating the other kids who never tolerated anyone who was different, another month of being bossed around by the orphanage keeper who didn’t like her very much. She sighed and leaned back against Puss, savouring the scent of adventure that lingered on his ginger fur and swallowing down the dread for this journey finally ends.

It ended all too soon.

She jumped down from Babieca and Puss caught her in his arms. Dulcinea unmounted from her mare as well, and she led their horses to the grass where they could wait until they said their goodbyes.

“Well,” Angela said, shrugging heavily. “See you next month, I guess.”

Dulcinea was faster than lightning when she moved to hug her tight.

“We’ll be here, Angela," she said, her conviction firm and solid. "We’ll be here.”

They stood there embracing each other for so long that Puss was certain they would never break apart if he hadn’t cleared his throat and interrupted their embrace with a grand, “ _Miladies._ ”

When they turned to look at him, they saw him grinning madly at them for some inexplicable reason.

Angela sniffed. “What?” Her voice was a little muted by snot. “What are you grinning about?”

Dulcinea had _that_ tone in her voice when she spoke.

“Puss…”

It didn’t have the usual effect it incited on her husband. Instead, he offered nothing but a fiendish grin that could have been as wide as the Western Desert with the way it giddily stretched over his face.

“You know…Angela…” he began, purposefully being cryptic, purposefully putting pregnant pauses in between his words. “You never really did tell me how difficult your orphanage keeper could be. Señora Herrera…she is a thousand times _worse_ than Señora Zapata.”

“Well yeah, she’s…the worst,” the child guardedly grumbled. “Why? What’s going on? Do _you_ know about this?”

Dulcinea fervently shook her head at the child who snapped her head to look at her. “No, nothing!” She turned to Puss. “Puss in Boots, you will _stop_ with the pregnant pause-y thingy and _tell us_ what’s up. Right. _Now._ ”

Despite the venom injected into her words, Puss in Boots did not stop with the pregnant pause-y thingy or tell them what was up. He merely continued with his slow cryptic speech.

“Señora Herrera… _ay_ , she makes the entire process sound like death sentence. She makes you sign a _lot_ of papers. Millions and billions of them! It was as if she did not want me to sign the end of it—”

“Puss.” Dulcinea had put both paws on both his cheeks and made him look her in the eye to get him to stop rambling. “Get to the end of it. Now.”

He gave a pregnant pause.

“The birthday cake,” he finally whispered, “was not the only reason it took me five, _six_ hours to return to you last night.”

It took her a while to process it—the cryptic grinning from last night, his rambling about papers being signed. She put two and two together and arrived at a conclusion that she herself had never believed would ever happen, and she paled at the shock of it.

“Puss…you didn’t.”

“Yes. Yes I did.”

The confirmation sent her reeling. Tears welled in her eyes. “We have to have a permanent home to even qualify.”

“I know.” He leaned against her paw on his cheek and smiled. “Part of the plan was to settle in San Lorenzo, remember?”

“You…didn’t,” was the only thing she could say, shaking her head as numerous wet smiles broke over her face. “You _didn’t_ —”

“Yes,” he affirmed. “Yes, I did.” Then he turned to look at Angela, who was rooted to the ground, as stiff as a tree.

“The only goodbye to be said today,” he said, “is the one you shall spit back to your old life.”

He moved to push open the doors of the orphanage. Inside, Señora Herrera sat as the receptionist, busying herself in signing papers. She looked up, saw the three cats on her doorway, and made some sort of irritated sound.

“ _There_ you are,” she said, peering at them over her glasses. “Been waiting for you all morning. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come. I was just about to put your garbage away.”

Angela was still silent. She took one look at her entire box of trinkets, placed unceremoniously before the receptionist’s desk, every invention she’d ever made, every gear she’d ever stolen, packed into that tiny little box, ready to be taken away.

She looked back at Puss.

“I…” She faltered. “I don’t understand.”

Her words trembled upon her tongue. A new sheet of tears formed over her eyes. She sounded afraid, and she was. She was afraid to hope, afraid to have it shatter in disappointment, afraid to grasp the reality that today, this day, life was offering her something, for once, that wasn’t booby trapped with conditions, something that came for free—something like the monthly visits she’d been having for the last couple of years, something like the birthday cake she’d just had last night. Something like a gift.

“Angela,” Dulcinea said, spreading her arms and inviting her to a hug, and her face, streaked by tears as it was, was so open, so tender, so warm.

The girl took a tentative step towards them.

“Mama,” she said, so quietly, uncertain if it was okay for someone like her to say the enchanted word that she’d only ever heard about in fairytales.

“ _Papa,_ ” she said, firmer this time, and the tears had finally run free, and she leapt to hug the people she were to consider her parents from this point onward.

* * *

“Mamaaa! _Paaaa_ _pa!_ ”

One year later in San Lorenzo, Angela in Boots, now a pre-teen in feline standards, with all her mother’s grace and all her father’s swagger, strode into Pajuna’s cantina where she knew she’d find her parents trying to have lunch in peace. She had just finished inventing the _perfect_ retractable sword to stab thieves with—and this time she was a hundred percent certain it _wasn’t_ going to implode upon activation—and she couldn’t wait to hear the both of them begging her to make them a matching pair.

Her father groaned.

“I love you, Angela, really,” he said, “But your last prototype obliterated my lunch to the Netherworld! At least let us finish—"

“Why hel _lo_ , Angela,” her mother cut him off, intentionally putting her father to despair, “come sit! Tell us _everything_ about it.”


End file.
